by Anne Perry
Dominic rose to his feet. He was surprised to find he was shaking. Even his legs felt unsteady. He gripped the back of his chair, knuckles white. He looked from one to another of them.
“One thing Clarice said is true; we are all afraid, and it is making us behave very badly. I do not know what happened to Unity, except that she is dead. Only one person here does know, and there is no purpose in us all protesting innocence or, unless we have some definite fact, in accusing anyone else.” He wanted to add that he had not had an affair with Unity, but it would only lead to a round of denials, exactly what he had suggested they do not do. “I am going to study for a while.” And he turned and left the table, still trembling inside and aware of a coldness of fear touching his skin. Clarice’s suggestion was preposterous, of course it was. But it was not unbelievable. It was a far better motive than anything attributable to Ramsay.
A thoroughly appalling evening was compounded by the arrival of Bishop Underhill at quarter past nine. Both Dominic and Ramsay had no alternative but to go down to the withdrawing room to receive him. He had called in his official capacity to offer his sympathy and support to the whole household during their bereavement and in this most difficult time.
Everyone was gathered together; it was due to his rank in the church. They were all uncomfortable in their different ways. Tryphena glared at him. Vita sat demurely, pale-faced, eyes full of dread. Mallory tried to pretend he was not there. Clarice mercifully kept silent, sitting motionless except for the occasional glance at Dominic.
The bishop stood, awkwardly, uncertain what to do with his hands. One moment he held them together, the next gestured with them wide open, then dropped them, and then started again.
“I am sure all our sympathies are with you during this ordeal,” he said resonantly, as if he were addressing an entire congregation. “We shall pray for you in every way … in every possible way.”
Clarice put her hands up to her face and stifled something which may have been a sneeze. Dominic was sure it was laughter, and he thought he knew what pictures were in her mind. He wished he were free to do the same instead of being obliged to listen seriously and look as if he were full of respect.
“Thank you,” Vita murmured. “It is all so horribly confusing.”
“Of course it is, my dear Mrs. Parmenter.” The bishop seized on something specific to address. “One must seek always for honesty and the guidance of the light of truth to find our way. The Lord has promised to be a lamp unto our path. We must put our trust in Him.”
Tryphena rolled her eyes, but the bishop was not looking at her.
Ramsay sat in wretched silence, and Dominic felt agonized for him. He was like a butterfly on a pin, still alive.
“We must have courage,” the bishop went on.
Clarice opened her mouth and then closed it again. Her face showed her struggle to keep her temper, and for once Dominic could identify with her utterly. Courage to do what? Not offer the hand of friendship or any promise of loyalty or help. That the bishop had very carefully refrained from doing. He had spoken nothing but the most guarded platitudes.
“We will do all we can,” Vita promised, looking up at him. “You are very kind to come to see us. I know how busy you are …”
“Nonsense, Mrs. Parmenter,” he responded with a smile. “It is the very least I could do …”
“The very least,” Clarice said under her breath, then she added aloud, “We knew that you would do that, Bishop Underhill.”
“Thank you, my dear. Thank you,” he accepted.
“I hope you will help us to behave honorably and to have the courage to act only for the best?” Vita went on rather quickly. “Perhaps a word of advice now and then? We should appreciate it so much. I …” She left the words hanging between them, the uncompleted sentence witness to her distress.
“Of course,” the bishop assured her. “Of course I will. I wish … I wish I knew … my own experience …”
Dominic was embarrassed for them all, and ashamed of himself for how profoundly he loathed the bishop. He should have admired him, should have felt he was a rock of support, wiser than they, stronger, filled with compassion and honor. Instead, the bishop seemed to have hedged and evaded, given general advice they did not need, and scrupulously avoided committing himself to anything.
The bishop’s visit dragged out a further half hour, then, to Dominic’s intense relief, he left. Vita accompanied him to the door, and Dominic met her in the main hall as she returned. She looked exhausted and almost feverish. How she found the strength to keep her composure as she did, he could not imagine. It would be difficult to think of a more fearful dilemma than that in which she was placed. His admiration for her was boundless. He cast about for some way to tell her so which was not fulsome or merely a further cause for anxiety or embarrassment.
“Your courage is superb,” he said gently, standing close enough to her that he could speak softly and be heard by no one else. “We all owe you a great deal. I think perhaps it is your strength which makes this bearable.”
She smiled up at him with a sudden rush of pleasure he thought for a moment was absolutely real, as if he had given her a small but precious gift.
“Thank you …” she whispered. “Thank you, Dominic.”
6
“DO YOU THINK it is Ramsay Parmenter?” Charlotte asked, pushing the marmalade across the breakfast table to Pitt. It was now the fourth day since Unity Bellwood’s death. Charlotte had, of course, told Pitt about her visit to Brunswick Gardens, and he had not reacted favorably. She had had some considerable explaining to do, and had not been very successful. She knew he was still unhappy about it—not that it was her meddling, which he was more than used to, but because she had gone so quickly to Dominic.
“I don’t know,” he replied to her question. “It seems most probable from the facts, and least likely from what I can learn of the man.”
“People do sometimes behave very out of character.” She took a piece of toast herself.
“No, they don’t,” he argued. “They only behave out of the character you know. If he was a man to do that, it will be there somewhere.”
“But if it wasn’t him, then it must have been Mallory,” she pointed out. “Why would he? The same reason?” She was trying to keep it out of her voice, but at the back of her mind was the cold fear that Dominic would be suspected. The change in him had been so complete, could Pitt believe it? Or would he always see Dominic as he had been in Cater Street, even by his own admission now, selfish, too easily flattered, giving in to appetite at the first whim?
“I doubt it,” he replied. “She irritated him with her views, but he was sufficiently certain in his mind it did not trouble him. But he could have been the father of her child, if that is what you mean.”
The coldness inside her grew. She tried to recall to her mind the image of Dominic as he had been during their carriage ride to the haberdasher. There was something he was keeping hidden and which troubled him, something to do with Unity.
“Then it probably was Mallory,” she said aloud, pouring him more tea without asking. “I spoke quite a lot with Dominic when I visited. I had the opportunity to be alone with him in the carriage. He really has changed utterly, Thomas. He has lost all the old selfishness. He believes in what he is doing now. It is a vocation for him. His whole face lights up when he speaks of it—”
“Does it?” Pitt said dryly, concentrating on his toast.
“You should talk to him yourself,” she urged. “You will see how different he is. It is as if he has suddenly grown up into all the best that was possible in him. I don’t know what happened, but he was in great despair, and Ramsay Parmenter found him and helped him, and through his pain he discovered a far greater goodness.”
He put his knife down. “Charlotte, you have spent the whole breakfast telling me how Dominic has changed. Somebody in that house killed Unity Bellwood, and I shall investigate it until either I discover who it was or there is nothi
ng more to pursue. And that includes Dominic as much as anyone else.”
She heard the edge to his voice, but she kept on arguing. “But you don’t really think Dominic could have done it, do you?” she persisted. “We knew Dominic, Thomas. He is part of our family.” She ignored her tea, which was rapidly going cold. “He might have been foolish in the past, indeed we know he was, but that is a very different thing from murder. He couldn’t! He’s terribly afraid for Ramsay Parmenter. His whole mind is taken up with his debt of gratitude to him and how he can help now that Ramsay needs him so much.”
“None of which means he could not have known Unity far better than he is implying,” he answered. “And that she didn’t find him extremely attractive and pursue him, perhaps more than he wished, tempt him, and then blackmail him afterwards.” He drank the last of his tea and set down the cup. “Taking the cloth forbids a man indulging his natural desires, but it does not stop him feeling them. You are being just as idealistic about Dominic as you used to be in Cater Street. He is a real man, with real weaknesses, like all of us!” He rose from the table, leaving the last two mouthfuls of his toast uneaten. “I am going to see what I can learn about Mallory.”
“Thomas!” she called out, but he had gone. She had done the last thing she had meant to. Far from helping Dominic, she had only succeeded in angering Pitt. Of course she knew Dominic was as human and as fallible as anyone else. That was what she was afraid of.
She stood up and started to clear the table.
Gracie came in looking puzzled, her starched apron crisp and clean. She was still so small all her clothes needed taking up, but she had filled out a little and was barely recognizable from the waif she had been when they had taken her in seven years before. Then she had been thirteen and looking for a domestic place, any place at all. She was extremely proud of working for a policeman, and a senior one at that, who solved all kinds of important cases. She never allowed the butcher’s boy or the fishmonger to take liberties with her, and told them off soundly if they were impertinent. She was quite capable of giving orders to the woman who came in twice a week to do the heavy scrubbing and laundry.
“Mr. Pitt din’t finish ’is breakfast!” she said, looking at the toast.
“I don’t think he wanted it,” Charlotte replied. There was no point in making up a lie for Gracie. She would not say anything, but she was far too observant to be misled.
“Prob’ly worried about that reverend wot pushed the girl down them stairs,” Gracie said with a nod, picking up the teapot and putting it on the tray. “ ‘Nother nasty one, that. I daresay as she was no better than she should be, an’ teasin’ a reverend is a wicked fing ter do, seein’ as they get undressed or summink if they fall inter sin.” She set about clearing the rest of the dishes from the table.
“Undressed?” Charlotte said curiously. “Most people get undressed to—” She stopped. She had no idea how much Gracie knew of the facts of life.
“ ‘Course they do,” Gracie agreed cheerfully, putting the marmalade and the butter onto her tray. “I mean the bishop takes ’em to court an’ undresses ’em permanent, like. And then they in’t reverends anymore. They can’t preach nor nuffink.”
“Oh! You mean defrocked!” Charlotte bit her lips to stop herself from laughing. “Yes, that’s right. It’s very serious indeed.” Her heart sank again, thinking of Dominic. “Perhaps Miss Bellwood wasn’t a very nice person.”
“Some folks like ter do that kind o’ thing,” Gracie went on, picking up the tray to carry it through to the kitchen. “Yer gonner find out all about ’em, ma’am? I can look arter everyfink ’ere. We gotter ’elp the Master if ’e’s got a bad case. ’E depends on us.”
Charlotte opened the door for her.
“ ’E must be worried,” Gracie went on, turning sideways to get through. “ ’E’s gorn awful early, an’ ’e never leaves ’is toast, ’cos of ‘is likin’ fer marmalade.”
Charlotte did not mention that he had gone in anger because of her repeated praise of Dominic and old wounds she had clumsily reopened.
They went into the kitchen, and Gracie set down the tray. A ginger striped cat with a white chest stretched languidly in front of the fire and removed himself from a pile of clean laundry.
“Get orff me dusters, Archie!” Gracie said sharply. “I dunno ’oo’s kitchen this is … ’is or mine!” She shook her head. “Wot wif ’im an’ Angus chasin’ each other all over the ’ouse, it’s a wonder more don’t get broken. I found ’em both asleep in the linen cupboard last week. Often lie there, them two. Black and ginger fur all over everythin’, there was.”
The front doorbell rang and Gracie went to answer it. Charlotte followed her into the hall and saw Sergeant Tellman. She stopped abruptly, knowing Tellman’s complicated emotions regarding Gracie, and her very simple reaction to him.
“If yer lookin’ for Mr. Pitt, ’e already went,” Gracie said, regarding Tellman’s lantern-jawed face, its characteristic dourness softening as he saw her.
Tellman pulled his watch out of his waistcoat pocket.
“ ’E went early,” Gracie agreed with a nod. “ ’E din’t say w’y.”
Tellman was undecided what to do. Charlotte could see that he wanted to stay longer and talk to Gracie. He had intense feelings about anyone’s being a servant to another person. He despised Gracie’s acceptance of the role, and she thought he was foolish and impractical not to see the great advantages it held. She was warm and dry every night, had more than sufficient to eat, and never had bailiffs after her, or any of the other trials and indignities of the poor. It was an argument they could have pursued indefinitely, only she considered it too silly to bother with.
“Yer ’ad yer breakfast?” Gracie asked, looking him up and down. “Yer look ’ungry. Not that you never looks like nothin’ but a fourpenny rabbit anyway, an’ a face like a dog wot’s bin shut out.”
He decided to ignore the insult, although he did it with difficulty.
“Not yet,” he answered.
“Well, if yer wants a couple o’ pieces o’ toast, there’s an ’ot cup o’ tea in the kitchen,” she offered quite casually. “If yer like?”
“Thank you,” he accepted, coming in straightaway. “Then I’d better be going to find Mr. Pitt. I can’t stay long.”
“I in’t askin’ yer fer long.” She whisked around, flashing her skirts and marching back down the corridor towards the kitchen. “I got work ter do. Can’t ’ave the likes o’ you clutterin’ up me way ‘alf the mornin’.”
Charlotte returned to the parlor and pretended she had not seen them.
She left the house herself a little after nine, and by ten o’clock was at her sister Emily’s town house in Mayfair. She knew, of course, that Emily was in Italy. She had received letters from Emily regularly detailing the glories of the Neapolitan spring; the most recent, yesterday evening, had been from Florence. The city was extremely beautiful and full of fascinating people, artists, poets, expatriate English of all sorts, not to mention the native Italians, whom Emily found courteous and more friendly than she had expected.
The very streets of Florence fascinated her. In the straw market, uncharacteristically for her, she was more drawn to the brave beauty of Donatello’s statue of the young St. George than to the goods she might have bought.
Charlotte envied her sister that adventure of the body and of the mind. But in Emily’s absence Charlotte had promised to call at the very least once or twice to visit with Grandmama, who was there virtually alone, at least as far as family was concerned. Caroline would call occasionally, but she was too busy to come often, and when Joshua was playing outside London, which he did now and then, she went with him.
Grandmama was not yet ready to receive visitors, and the maid asked Charlotte to wait, which was what she had expected. Whatever time she called had to be wrong, and ten in the morning should hardly be too late, therefore it would be too early.
She contented herself with reading the morning ne
wspaper, which the footman brought to her ironed and on a salver. She accepted it with a smile and began to see what comments it had about the death of Unity Bellwood. At least so far it was not a scandal, merely a tragedy without satisfactory explanation. It would probably not have been mentioned at all had it not occurred in the home of the next Bishop of Beverly.
The door opened and the old lady stood in the entrance. She was dressed in black, as was her habit. She had made an occupation of being in mourning ever since her husband’s death some thirty-five years since. If it was good enough for the Queen, it was certainly a pattern worthy of her emulation.
“Reading the scandal are you, again?” she said critically. “If this were my house, I shouldn’t allow the footman to give you the newspapers. But then it isn’t. I don’t have a home anymore.” Her voice took on a note of acute self-pity. “I am a lodger, a dependent. Nobody takes any notice of what I want.”
“I am sure you can please yourself whether you read the newspapers or not, Grandmama,” Charlotte replied, folding the paper and setting it aside on the table. She rose to her feet and went towards the old lady. “How are you? You look well.”
“Don’t be impertinent,” the old lady said, bridling a little. “I am not well. I have hardly been sleeping at all.”
“Are you tired?” Charlotte enquired.
The old lady glared at her. “If I say yes, you will suggest I return to my bed; if I say no, you will tell me I did not need the sleep,” she pointed out. “Whatever I say, it will be wrong. You are most argumentative today. Why did you come, if all you want to do is contradict me? Have you quarreled with your husband?” She looked hopeful. “I daresay he is tired of your meddling in matters that are none of your concern and of which no decent woman would even have heard.” She stomped over to Charlotte, waving her stick in front of her, and sat down heavily in one of the chairs near the fire.
Charlotte returned to her chair and sat down also.
“No, I have not quarreled with Thomas,” she said smoothly. It was true, in the way Grandmama meant it, if not literally. And even if he had beaten her, she would not have told the old lady so. “I came to visit you.”